Multencode: New Variables Question

[Yawo Kokuvi]

Hello,

I've been trying to synchronize value labels from multiple surveys. I first decoded all numeric variable using the "decode" command, giving me a set of variables beginning with "s_".

I am using "multencode" to re-create numeric variables that I had "decoded". The code below works to loop through all the variables that begin with "s_" (the string variables).

set more off
foreach v of var s_*{
            multencode `v', gen(E`v')
        }

I want to be able to modify the gen(E`v') to give me back the original variable names, without the "E_" prefixes.

I would appreciate some help in fixing this code.

thanks - Yy

[Nick Cox]

The whole point of multencode (from SSC, as you are asked to explain) is to encode several variables at the same time and consistently. If you want to encode them one by one, you might as well use encode alone.

Otherwise I guess the recipe you want is

encode several variables to new variables

drop those several variables

use the old names now available to rename the new variables.

[Yawo Kokuvi]

ok, thanks Nick. I assuming I want to rename those list of variables all beginning with "E_", (by removing the prefix) is there a way to efficiently do this without typing the variables one by one (there are about 50 of them). I have already dropped the old variable names, so they are now available to use.

[daniel klein]

rename E_* *

Best
Daniel

[Rich Goldstein]

re: #3, see

help rename group

esp #6 which shows how to drop prefixes

[Yawo Kokuvi]

thanks very much for your assistance - it all worked perfectly !